


Zane's Great Idea

by dragoninatrenchcoat



Category: Cosmere - Brandon Sanderson, Mistborn - Brandon Sanderson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 03:47:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5401784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragoninatrenchcoat/pseuds/dragoninatrenchcoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, he was struck by a Great Idea. He didn’t know where they came from, but they had worked out for him perfect every time. That wasn’t a Mistborn thing; he had asked. It was a Zane thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Zane's Great Idea

Zane knew a lot. He was seven. A kid like him didn’t survive to be seven and not know a lot of things. Alright, yeah, his dad gave him food and shelter--but they could hardly be _called_ food and shelter. Really they were only marginally better than what some of the other skaa boys he saw on the streets had.

He couldn’t tell them that, of course. His dad wouldn’t allow him to say anything about where he comes from or really anything true about himself, to anybody, no matter what. And he listened to his dad. He always listened to his dad. His very earliest memory was of not listening to Dad, and exactly what had happened to him then.

One good thing about having experienced the worst pain imaginable is having a yardstick by which to measure all other sorts of pain.

The special thing about Zane--the very most important thing that he was not allowed to tell anybody, no matter what--was that he was Mistborn. That meant he had all kinds of special abilities that very few other people had. He’d learned how to use all of them (of course) and practiced every day. His goal was to become the very best Mistborn the world had ever seen.

Even though the world would never see him. That was the trick about Mistborn.

His dad wanted to see him once a day to make sure he wasn’t dead and test how good he was at being Mistborn. He wasn’t happy yet, but Zane would make him happy soon enough. After that part of the day, Zane had to go out on the streets and get the rest of the day’s meals. He wasn’t quite subtle enough yet to use Allomancy out on the street; everyone knew Inquisitors could pierce copperclouds, and Zane’s dad had told him that if he got caught he’d be on his own. But he did know a thing or two about pickpocketing. He was the slyest among them, even without Allomancy.

It helped that sometimes, he was struck by a Great Idea. He didn’t know where they came from, but they had worked out for him perfect every time. That wasn’t a Mistborn thing; he had asked. It was a Zane thing.

Today was a good day for pickpocketing. He’d snatched enough boxings to get his favorite meal, and almost enough for a treat too. His favorite treat was a special sort of baked glazed pastry hot from the oven. It wouldn’t be hot from the oven at this hour but if he just got one more coin he could still get it same-day fresh, which was more than any other skaa street boy could get. Zane liked to pride himself on getting what no other skaa street boy could get.

This time, though, he picked the wrong target. Everyone knew that the wrong target meant death for pickpockets.

Luckily, Zane wasn’t just a simple pickpocket.

The teenager--a noble, by his pristine blue ashcloak and his haughty gait, a _real_ noble, like little Elend--grabbed Zane’s hand before he could get it out of his purse. Zane froze, looking up at him (How old was he? Sixteen? Seventeen? An adult, practically!) and met his eyes. The teenager was angry. Looks like he’d already had a bad day, and wasn’t going to go easy on Zane for making it worse.

It was sunset. Zane would have had to run to make the bakery before closing. It looked like he wasn’t going to eat again today, if he survived. He still had the one free meal from home, which was more than the other skaa boys had. He wouldn’t starve.

“You’re going to regret that, kid,” said the noble. His left eye twitched faintly. He pulled Zane’s hand out of his pouch, then took the coin that was still clenched between Zane’s surpsied fingers. He held it in a peculiar way that looked familiar somehow.

 _He’s a coinshot!_ Zane realized, his eyes wide. _He’s going to shoot that right into me and kill me!_

He’d never used allomancy outside before. He’d only ever trained on Venture property. Could he remember it all? Could he do it out here for the first time?

He still had some metals in him from practice. He’d have to figure it out.

Suddenly (just for a moment, or maybe an Inquisitor would see!) Zane burned steel and Pushed on the coin. He happened to do it at just the same moment as the noble coinshot, which meant not only that the coin went nowhere at all, but also that Zane got pushed back several feet, lost balance, and rolled onto the ground.

Ash all over him. All over his black fluffy hair, his pale skin, his loose clothes. He’d been trying to avoid that--his dad hated it when he got his clothes all dirty, even though they weren’t exactly very expensive clothes in the first place. He pushed himself to his feet, grimacing, and glanced up.

The teenager was staring at him, shocked, in the waning light. Zane froze.

He really shouldn’t have frozen, he should have run. Zane told himself to remember that the moment he saw the noble chasing toward him.

Frantically, Zane dug an ash-stained hand into his own meager pouch and found some coins. He dropped one, burned steel again (and kept burning it this time), and Pushed.

Little seven-year-old Zane launched into the air. He’d done it once or twice, over the roof of the Venture manor, and only just barely managed to keep a bold on the other coins in his hand as little puffs of ash came free of his shirt in the sudden chilly breeze. He stared down through the blue lines at the people zooming away below him--they saw him, what if they knew him what if they told an Inquisitor-

Little swirls of mist began to appear, spreading swiftly through the end of the sunset.

Zane, reaching the apex of his Push, blue lines stretching out away from him in many directions, heaved the biggest sigh of relief his lungs could muster. Never in his entire life had he been so happy to be so wrong about the time. An entire hour. He needed to pay closer attention to the look of the sunset. The ash could really throw him off sometimes.

A bunch of the blue lines, moving in unison, swivelled up, as if something from the ground was moving up very fast. The coinshot!

Zane picked a random line and Pushed against it at the same time and in the same general direction as the coinshot’s bundle. Belatedly, pushed into the wall of blinding mists, he burned tin as well. He had a lot of that, since he’d drank a whole mistborn bottle that morning and never really needed to practice with tin. The mists almost seemed to evaporate before him, giving him a great view of the _stone_ wall he was about to run into.

Lord Ruler! Quickly- he found a blue line leading up, fumbled to burn iron, and Pulled. He lurched in midair and, confused, stopped burning steel and tin. He turned tin back on a moment later. He really needed to practice more in a confusing environment, he was way too comfortable at home.

He hit the wall not too long into the Pull and, not sure what else to do, he turned sideways and just rolled up the wall. His Pull was at something of a slant, so it sort of felt like he was rolling on his side down a weirdly smooth hill. Eventually he Pulled himself over the lip of the roof and slumped onto the sheet metal on top, staring up through the mists with his eyes wide, panting, dizzy.

He’d seen the stars before. His dad wouldn’t let him practice outside unless it was nighttime. They’d never quite spun in that way, however.

There was a _clap_ as a heavy pair of feet landed beside him on the metal sheeting of the roof.

“A skaa street rat is a coinshot,” said the noble, squinting through the mist for him, his left eye twitching a little. Following the blue lines, Zane realized. That’s how he’d followed him. “I ought to bring you to the obligators. But all I want to do is shove a coin through your face.”

How can Zane make him stop? Could he do anything? He definitely couldn’t beat a _sixteen-year-old_ in a fight. He’d been training, but even he knew he couldn’t be _that_ good. He could get rid of the bag of coins and hide in the mists. That would be the best option, but Zane had worked hard for these coins all day and didn’t want some teenager coinshot to make him give them up.

Maybe... emotional Allomancy? He didn’t know Zane was Mistborn. Maybe he’d think it was all in his head or something, if Zane was subtle enough. The problem was, Zane had only ever practiced with one person and since he was Dad’s Terrisman he was probably paid to say Zane was doing a good job.

Well, it was worth a shot, anyway. Sooth- brass- burn brass, sooth anger. He watched the coinshot from his spot on the floor. The world was still spinning a little and his sides hurt from rolling on the wall, but they were almost nothing against his yardstick. Was it working? Was he being too subtle? He soothed it a little harder.

The noble stopped cold. Hopeful, Zane extinguished brass.

“A Mistborn?” the coinshot whispered. Zane wouldn’t have been able to hear if he hadn’t been burning tin. “A pickpocket skaa Mistborn on the street?”

Zane tensed.

The coinshot turned to run.

Panicked, Zane shot to his feet and just burned everything, racing after him. Blue lines erupted into his vision, nearly blinding him, pointing to seemingly every single inch of the roof. Somehow he felt more alive, more awake, stronger- the dizziness was completely gone, his soreness had vanished-

Pewter! Zane could have smacked himself on the head. How could he have forgotten about pewter? Stupid, stupid-

He caught up to the coinshot (who was somehow _pulsing_ weirdly) and, not sure what else to do, he tackled him to the ground. The coinshot, apparently expecting something like that, surprised Zane by twisting around and swiping something at him. There was an impact and Zane’s collarbone hurt suddenly--probably a quarter against his yardstick, maybe less. He saw a gleaming flash in the starlight reflecting off of a shiny, black blade. A dagger. An obsidian dagger.

The coinshot wormed out of Zane’s grip and shot off of the metal roof. Zane followed, Pushing from the roof without bothering to get up first and then Pushing again from a spot a little behind him. He flailed a little in the air, unused to throwing himself about without knowing precisely where he was going.

He had no idea what he was doing. He couldn’t win against a sixteen-year-old coinshot with a glass dagger! But he had to stop him. If the coinshot told the Inquisitors about him, that was it. His dad couldn’t and wouldn’t help him, and all ties would be cut. They’d actually stop being related. There’d been a long explanation about it that Zane didn’t entirely follow but generally speaking, he would just be dead. He couldn’t die. He was only seven!

Suddenly, as he chased the coinshot through the air, Zane had a Great Idea.

He should kill him.

Zane had had enough Great Ideas to know he could trust it. His first one had been to always listen to his dad, and that had worked out perfect for him so far. One of his other ones had been to switch two random cups on his dad’s plate, which apparently had made some other noble die instead of Zane’s dad. He’d given Zane a present because of that.

So, Zane was going to kill this coinshot. Somehow.

He raced toward him, Pushing against a window below and Pulling himself to the side, but the coinshot dropped suddenly at the last moment before shooting off in another direction. Zane followed, too aware that he was burning the only metals he had. He had to make this fight short.

Zane arced toward the coinshot, trying to keep up, and at the same time Pulled and Pushed on the coinshot’s emotions, trying to unsettle him. He rioted fear, uncertainty, and confusion, and soothed anger, determination, and joy. Zane didn’t know if the coinshot was feeling joy or not but he figured he might as well sooth it anyway.

It actually worked, a bit. Through the swirling mists, which curled around Zane in that way they always did with him when he was doing Allomancy, he could see the coinshot flying ahead and a little above him glancing through the mist in fear. Blind. What did mistings think they were doing, going out in the mist? Only Mistborn belonged here!

Zane’s light, small body rose silently through the air toward the noble, but the noble’s eyes caught on the blue lines between them and he shot off again. Zane grimaced and followed. He needed to end this quick! He was running out of steel!

He took one of his coins out of his purse and aimed it, then Pushed. It shot roughly toward the coinshot, but veered off-course at the last second. A moment later, another coin- this time from the coinshot, aimed at him. Zane Pushed that one, too. This wasn’t going to work.

Iron! Lord Ruler! he kept forgetting the most basic things, Dad would not be proud--

Zane Pulled on the coinshot’s pouch. Since the coinshot was a lot bigger than him, Zane jerked in the air, soaring through the mists directly toward him. It was working! He was nearly at him-

Something smacked Zane right in the face, and suddenly he was falling. What was it-

He hit the metal sheeting of some rooftop, _hard_. Even with pewter burning, it was easily half his yardstick in pain. He pushed himself up onto his knees, disoriented. What had happened? Where was that coinshot?

A bag of coins, not his, lay sprawled on the rooftop next to him. The noble’s coins. He’d cut them loose rather than let Zane catch up. No. Oh, no, he couldn’t have lost him. Where was he? Zane stood up, looking into the mists, flaring tin-

Oh oh oh, _ow_ , three-quarters pain when he did that. He extinguished tin by reflex, putting one hand on his side, and flared pewter. Did pewter heal him, or did it just make pain bearable? He couldn’t remember.

Zane had no idea where he was or which House this keep might belong to. He didn’t know any of them well enough, and without tin burning, the mists really were blindingly thick. He panted. How could he find the coinshot again? What if he couldn’t-

Someone set down onto the rooftop with a light _tap_. Zane spun, just barely able to see an outline in the mists. He burned tin, this time anticipating the pain spike. It was the same coinshot stepping slowly toward him.

“Where did you come from, kid?” he asked. “Tell me.”

Zane saw the knife in his hand.

“Tell me and I won’t kill you. I won’t even report you. In fact, I’ll do you one better. I’ll take you home.”

Zane stopped, stunned.

“You heard me,” the noble said, inching forward, his left eye twitching slightly. “My family doesn’t have a Mistborn. It can’t be easy, living out on the street like that. You tell me if you know anything about your parents, and I’ll take you home, and my family will adopt you.”

If this coinshot were talking to any other skaa kid, he’d have a chance. But Zane’s loyalties were the clearest thing to him: do as Dad says, and follow any Great Ideas. Dad had said not to run away.

And Zane’s Great Idea was to kill this coinshot.

Zane leapt forward and grabbed onto him, clutching his shoulder with one hand and the wrist holding the knife with the other. Knowing he was probably going to shoot away from the roof, Zane also wrapped his legs around the teenager’s waist--and good thing he did, because the very next moment, he shot away from the roof.

The most important thing was to keep one hand firmly on the wrist holding the knife. That knife wasn’t metal so Zane couldn’t do anything about it. The second most important thing was to keep holding onto the coinshot, so that he didn’t lose him again, and the third most important thing was to figure out how to use this weird grapple to kill him.

The coinshot’s free arm wrapped around Zane and grabbed him at the waist, trying to rip him off. Zane flared pewter and held on tight- he felt something _crack_ between his legs, and the coinshot let out a short moan of pain, which was incredibly clear while burning tin in such close proximity. Did he just break something? Was he really that strong? The two of them soared through the air, the coinshot’s ashcloak flapping, but Zane wasn’t burning steel or iron anymore and paid little attention to where they were actually going. His main and only focus was on that dagger.

He grabbed the coinshot’s shoulder in his right arm even as the coinshot writhed and bucked and kicked at him. Somehow, while he was focused on shaking the knife out of the coinshot’s right hand, he lost his footing and he found his weight completely supported by his right arm. Zane let go of the knife hand in order to find purchase on the coinshot, grabbing his other shoulder and climbing with his feet.

Zane’s heart spiked in fear. He had no idea where that knife was. Sailing through the sky with the coinshot, Zane scrambled to get out of his reach somehow, dangling from his chest, wrapping his legs around the coinshot’s leg, grabbing his arm- he felt a stab of pain, literally, in one of his arms and almost fell when he tried to grab the knife--

A Great Idea. A second one. Two in one day- it was remarkable!

Use the present.

Zane couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it sooner.

He extinguished tin, bringing his arm’s pain down to a dull three-eighths (he should have done that a while ago, it’s not like he was really using tin. He told himself to remember that) and reached down beneath his trousers, grabbing the string that was tied around his thigh and yanking on it with a pewter-enchanced pull. His side split open in pain- the knife the coinshot still had. Zane was surprised he’d only gotten the two hits in so far. Was he moving that slowly? Or was Zane just moving quickly?

There was a small bead on the end of the string. A metal bead, placed reverently in the palm of a four-year-old who had done nothing more remarkable than trade a couple cups on a platter. He’d been told not to use it unless it was an emergency.

Zane put the bead in his mouth and ripped it off of the string with his teeth, forcing himself to swallow. He probably ate a good half-inch of the string as well, but he wasn’t picky. Maybe it would make a half-decent replacement for the meal all those coins he’d lost could have gotten him.

There was a new, unfamiliar metal reserve within him. A little eager--he’d never so much as tasted atium before--Zane burned it, just as the obsidian knife came around the coinshot’s side, right toward his face.

The world erupted with clarity.

Zane moved his head just a touch out of the way of a blue phantom knife, and the real knife sailed clear of him. Suddenly, keeping a hold of the coinshot was the simplest thing, and he didn’t have to scramble to readjust himself. Perfect handholds presented themselves, and Zane had only to keep an eye on the ever-flowing ghostly fore-shadows to keep deftly out of the coinshot’s reach. Part of him didn’t understand how all of this blurry blue motion could make sense to him, but it _did_. The coinshot was Zane’s personal little ride out into the mists. He climbed around him like a spider spinning prey into its web.

Kill him? That would be easy. Zane had only to reach out his hand and pluck the obsidian dagger from the premonition-shadows. He saw the coinshot’s eyes widen in fear when he had it.

But.

No.

Zane had _another_ Great Idea. The third in one day. It was unheard of.

There was a better way to do this.

He let the glass dagger fall from his fingertips.

Then he grabbed hold of the coinshot, face-to-face again, his arms gripping each shoulder tight and his legs wrapped firmly around the waist. He burned tin. His atium was running out, but he didn’t need it for long, because he knew now what keep they were over. He Pulled downard, causing them to fall.

It was Keep Venture. And Keep Venture had one nice long metal spear right at the top.

“What are you doing?” the coinshot asked, his voice shaking in fear as he plummeted down backwards. “Why won’t you come with me?”

“Because I know who my dad is,” Zane answered. “And he wouldn’t like it if I ran away.”

He Pulled harder on the metal spear. He didn’t have time to second-guess himself, and even if he did, he wouldn’t. Because this was a Great Idea, and Zane’s Great Ideas always worked out perfect.

The two of them _slammed_ into the spike, coinshot-first. Zane watched the teenager’s eyes fill with panic, then pain, as his blood splattered everywhere. His left eye twitched.

Then the spike sheared straight through Zane’s chest.

The pain was horrible. Zane extinguished tin, but it was still there, agony ripping between his ribs. The two of them, him and the coinshot, slipped down the narrow spike and rammed into the base together. It was a long enough spike that a good half foot stuck out of Zane’s back, even with the two of them piled at the bottom.

Shocked, Zane struggled to breathe, his chest aflame. His legs had slipped free, but his hands still gripped the coinshot’s shoulders; Zane pulled on him, panicking, reaching over his shoulder to grab a small divot in the roof tiles as he tried to stay balanced at the top of this tower, his small weight pulling him backward and putting even more fire on the torture in his chest.

This definitely broke his yardstick.

Tears pooled at the corners of Zane’s eyes. Why hadn’t he seen this coming? Why had he done this? This wasn’t a Great Idea at all! He was going to die up here! He gasped for breath, coughing, staring down into the coinshot’s lifeless eyes mere inches away from his own, his chest, hips, and legs pressed down against the corpse, even as he kicked and struggled to stop the torque put on his horrible chest wound from his lopsided landing. He pulled at the small divot with his left hand and on the coinshot’s shoulder with his right and managed to find a sort of equilibrium.

Finally stable, Zane stopped to gather his breath. He heard nothing but his own panting and tasted blood on his lips. Every breath sent a fresh wave of pain through his body. He started to cry.

“Dad?” Zane called, hiccoughing. All he could see without craning his neck was the dead coinshot’s terrified face. “Dad, please! Dad, help me!”

Of course, his dad couldn’t hear him from way up here. Zane coughed, his chest convulsing, and he cried out in pain.

“Your dad can’t help you with this,” said a voice, clear as day.

Zane, hyperventilating, glanced side to side, trying to find the source of the voice, but everything was blurry through his tears. It obviously wasn’t the coinshot, whose body was already starting to get cold beneath him. He swallowed a mouthful that mostly just tasted like blood, his chest still aflame with agony, and he started to sob.

“There’s an easy way out of this pickle, you know,” continued the voice.

“Wh-who-” Zane stuttered, hiccoughing, “Who a-are you?”

“I’m God,” said the voice.

“L-Lord Ruler?” His left hand started to slip, so he hastily readjusted his grip on the divot.

“No. I outrank him.”

Zane blinked, confused, his vision starting to clear a little. He sniffed. It was hard to breathe with his chest pressed down on the coinshot’s and the steel roof spike going through him. “I don’t get it.”

“That’s fine, Zane. The point is, you can get out of this, and your dad doesn’t even have to know.”

He fought back more tears. “H-how?”

“There’s a small latch beneath the spike. If you Push, it’ll come undone.”

That didn’t make much sense to Zane, but he didn’t have many options. Already burning pewter by instinct (not that it was doing much to help his broken yardstick), he burned the last of his steel and saw a huge, bright blue line leading directly down through the dead coinshot and into the tower. He Pushed it.

Miraculously, something unlatched and the steel spike came loose. Unbalanced, Zane toppled off of the tower and rolled awkwardly, dropped into a spinning freefall, and landed face-first onto the metal sheet roof. He screamed as the force pushed him down the rest of the spike and his cheek collided with the rooftop. His head twirled. A dull _thump_ denoted the coinshot’s body falling a little ways away. Wracked with pain, he forced himself onto his side and curled into himself, cradling his chest. There was a disc there, nearly flush against his skin, like the head of a nail. Behind him the other end of the spike clattered against the roof, sending agonizing shivers through his chest with every vibration.

“Don’t remove that spike, whatever you do,” the voice said. “With your injuries, it’ll kill you. Shear off the end and leave it in forever. And don’t tell your father. He’ll definitely kill you if he finds out you almost let someone know you were Mistborn.”

Zane nodded, but he wasn’t strong enough yet to uncurl. He laid there on the cold sheet metal, the mists stealing back from him in an unfamiliar way, and shuddered with pain.

This was going to have to be his new yardstick.

“Th-thank you, God,” Zane said quietly.

“You’re welcome, Zane,” God replied.

 

 


End file.
